In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

18 Jun

ICJ Judge Giorgio Gaja (who was also the special rapporteur on the International Law Commission for the Responsibility of International Organizations) has made the case that International Organizations have a duty to prevent.  The context was a talk he gave at the University of Amsterdam in April 2013 on the European Union and the ILC's Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. If one takes...

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18 Jun

Brazil is experiencing its biggest wave of protests in decades over a wide variety of grievances, ahead of a range of high-profile international events in the next few years. Russia and Iran have warned against intervention in Syria and oppose the arming of Syrian rebels. Syrian President Assad has warned Europe that it will pay the price for arming the rebels in...

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17 Jun

The members of the G8 are meeting in Northern Ireland this week. The meeting takes place amidst revelations that US and UK intelligence agencies spied on their allies during G20 meetings in London in 2009. The latest round of climate change talks concluded in Bonn on Friday. Earth Negotiations Bulletin has a detailed summary here. The Armed Groups and International Law Blog...

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15 Jun

This week on Opinio Juris, there was a lot of news to cover with NSA leak and the US administration's decision to arm Syrian rebels. On the first, Julian thought Hong Kong was a dumb choice of refuge for the NSA leaker. Chris dug deeper into domestic data-mining with earlier stories about the NSA's activities. Peter addressed the position of expat...

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14 Jun

The White House’s recent statement that it would begin supplying Syrian rebels with arms demonstrates how military assistance and intervention remain a choice of states rather than an obligation. Recent events confirm the arguments I make in a recent article The Choice to Protect: Rethinking Responsibility for Humanitarian Intervention. I am pleased to be guest blogging about this topic over...

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14 Jun

Opinio Juris is pleased to welcome Professor Neomi Rao of George Mason University School of Law as guest-blogger for the next week. With the Syria crisis re-emerging as a possible flashpoint for military intervention, we thought it would be interesting for Professor Rao to discuss her recent work on the status and impact of the "Responsibility to Protect" principle that is...

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13 Jun

The deadline for submitting your proposal has arrived! A reminder that June 14 is the last day you can submit a proposal for the Mid-Year Research forum to be held in NYC from November 1-3 this year.   This conference features works-in-progress by society members - it is a terrific way to workshop your research projects.   Here is the call for...

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13 Jun

The tendency in the United States is to think about cyberthreats exclusively in terms of US interests (a tendency I've certainly followed on more than one occasion).  Hence, the extended attention to questions of whether and how Congress should regulate cybersecurity.  But, of course, cyberspace -- and cyberthreats -- are global.  Every nation is now faced with developing a strategy...

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13 Jun

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Edward Snowden has revealed that the US has engaged in hacking activities against Hong Kong and China. In a report released yesterday to mark World Day Against Child Labor, the ILO estimated that around 10 million children worldwide are working in domestic labour. Turkey's crackdown in Taksim Square may not be without consequences...

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12 Jun

The NSA may be collecting data on Americans in the United States. What about Americans abroad? "Foreign intelligence" is a term threaded through the surveillance debate, with a general understanding that collecting that kind of information is okay. The term is defined in a territorial sense, in the sense of intelligence originating outside of the United States. Under the FISA Amendments...

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12 Jun

The Pre-Trial Chamber I has rejected Laurent Gbagbo's challenge to the admissibility of the case against him, due to insufficient evidence that he is being actively prosecuted in Côte d'Ivoire.  EU officials have sent a "please explain" to the US over the private information of European citizens collected under the PRISM program. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have asked the US government...

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12 Jun

Network from Michael Rigley on Vimeo. Via Boing Boing a very good short animation discussing data mining. This isn't focused on the NSA program that is currently the source of discussion and dispute but the broader issue of how both companies and governments are able to retain, purchase, and analyze massive amounts of data. For a deeper dive into data mining, I highly recommend...

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